At one end of the street stood the Academy, with its classic fašade and its
belfry; midway was the hotel, with the stores, the printing-office, and the
churches; and at the other extreme, one of the square white mansions stood
advanced from the rank of the rest, at the top of a deep-plunging valley,
defining itself against the mountain beyond so sharply that it seemed as if
cut out of its dark, wooded side. It was from the gate before this house,
distinct in the pink light which the sunset had left, that, on a Saturday
evening in February, a cutter, gay with red-lined robes, dashed away, and
came musically clashing down the street under the naked elms. For the
women who sat with their work at the windows on either side of the way,
hesitating whether to light their lamps, and drawing nearer and nearer to
the dead-line of the outer cold for the latest glimmer of the day, the
passage of this ill-timed vehicle was a vexation little short of grievous.
Every movem